Thursday, August 20, 2009

Day Four, Progress Not Perfection

I heard the alarm go off, and I just couldn't make it out of bed. Between the whole BFL changes in eating and exercise, lumped in with taking care of Andrew and work, blogging, cleaning (hah), and trying to take time for my favorite activities like reading and knitting and watching "Battlestar Galactica" (damn good show), I have been lucky to fall asleep at 12:30. I guess it caught up with me today and I just forwarded the alarm to a later hour and continued to try to sleep. I had a headache and felt a little nauseous, which I attributed to not eating after 6:45 last night.

Funny thing is, it was hard to go back to bed. I had almost gotten up with the alarm, but just felt too crappy and told myself that it wasn't now or never, that I could work out later in the evening. But laying there, trying to go back to sleep, was hard. I almost felt convinced that I'd just not work out at all today, and that led to a host of worry, concern (basically, fear) that I would just end up eating crappy today, not meditating, and would continue on the same old path as if I'd never started BFL.

These feelings kept coming up all morning and afternoon. I made time for meditation in the morning, and I walked to work (just in case I didn't end up doing my Aerobic Solution), and ate well. But the feeling of failure kept nagging me. Then I got ahold of myself. I had to keep telling myself not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, to not throw in the towel. It's day four, I'm hardly a pro at this, and it is going to take a period of adjustment for such a large lifestyle change. Back in the day, I used to work out, and it had to be every day, rain or shine, and if I missed a day, there was a very good (like 95%) chance that I would just never get back into the rhythm. That's seriously what I am like. I was so worried that missing one workout would set off that old habit of just saying "screw it" about the whole thing, and then I was projecting my fat, wrecked, old self on my future. Which is totally batshit crazy, I know. I just have to stay in today. I can't do a thing about yesterday, and tomorrow isn't here yet, so all I can work on is today.

I feel like I had a bit of a mental breakthrough with all of this. More so when I did get on the elliptical machine this evening (at 10:20, thank you very much). My legs are still talking to me, and I'm giving my thighs nicknames like "quadristrings" and "hamceps", and this workout was intense and hard. Especially as I kept ramping up the intensity, over and over. For the last cycle, I kept telling myself: "This is the last 6 of the workout...the last 7..." and so forth. But 9 and 10 were really pushing me. I ended up flipping in my BFL journal to the pictures of Carolyn Culverhouse. She was 51 when she did BFL, and she not only did it once, she did it three times in one year. She lost something like 80 pounds of fat. It's not just the numbers that get me, but it's her pictures. Not necessarily her body, but more her face. She looks like she's in her 50s in her before picture, but by the end, she looks like she's 35. Her mouth is closed in a frowning smile in the "before" shot, but in subsequent after shots, her mouth begins to really smile, and in the last "after" shot, she is showing teeth and just looks all lit up inside. I stared at her pictures while I chugged away and starting chanting to myself: "If Carolyn Culverhouse could do it, so can I." I said that for a while, then started inserting other people's names that I admired. For instance, Michelle Obama said in an interview that she gets up crazy early (I think she said 4:30) to work out. So: "If Michelle Obama can do it, so can I." That little bit has gotten me out of bed almost all this week, by the way. And I kept thinking of people's names to use. People I admired. And the last few minutes were gone in a rush, and I even felt a bit more pumped, knowing I had called up some kind of emotional, physical, spiritual power. I had done it, too, just like them. What great company to be in!

At the risk of sounding a bit Hallmark-y, I am proud of myself for making it through a mental speedbump. I am proud I worked out, even if it meant doing it late at night and missing out on other stuff I wanted to do. I am proud I made a decision to take care of myself today. I will do it tomorrow! See you then!

1 comment:

  1. this is so inspiring, erin!
    I'm so impressed and proud (sorry, I'm maternal whether I mean to be or not...)
    looking forward to reading more,
    justine

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